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Topic
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What are the rules about planting established trees ie natives, bottle brush into lawns on common property?
A tenant has started her own garden at the back of the building by digging into common property.
l set up a small garden there about five years ago with pots that can be removed as well as tan bark and a rockery edging. I am an owner and have lived here for 15 years.
Her plants are trees that have been planted too close together, could potentially grow quite big and cause additional maintenance for our gardening costs down the track.
l do love trees and don’t want to appear churlish but it’s more the principle of planting into the ground without any permission, notification or consultation with the Owners Corp.
Has anyone got any advice?
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Talk to the Committtee. Eventually, those trees will require maintenance and that cost will be shared by all owners. So it’s in the interests of the Committee to ensure that the responsibility for those trees is understood and properly documented from the start. No one can plant trees on common property without permission. The tenant may have received permission from the landlord, who may have received permission from the Committee. So first find out if any permission was sought and/or received. If there was none, then the Committee may agree to ask the landlord to remove the trees and repair the lawn. I believe it’s up to the landlord to recover costs from the tenant.
If the landlord doesn’t act, then the Committee may be able to arrange for the tree removal to be charged to the landlord. Alternatively, the Committee could establish a by-law giving ongoing maintenance responsibility for those trees to the lot that planted them.
The model by-laws that many strata building’s adopt, or have as their default, normally have a specific by-law stating that the common property gardens are not to be altered by residents. The tenant might be unaware of the by-law, and so it’s education that need, as well as a copy being provided. For a variety of reasons, that by-law should be followed, and the tenant is just wasting their money buying and planting shrubs that have to be removed. Or if the strata committee likes them, then they can take them on…